Wednesday 13 January 2016 00:09, UK
Eddie Howe praised Benik Afobe's debut for the club, despite Bournemouth losing 3-1 to West Ham United at the Vitality Stadium on Tuesday night.
The home side had led 1-0 at half-time through Harry Arter's first-ever Premier League goal, and it could have been more but for a number of missed opportunities, including two from their new £9m striker from Wolverhampton Wanderers.
However, after Dimitri Payet had equalised for the visitors with a free-kick midway through the second half, Slaven Bilic's team went on to claim all three points thanks to an Enner Valencia brace.
Howe, though, could only applaud West Ham's crucial first and last goals, both brilliant free-kicks, while also regretting the openings his side spurned before half-time.
"The quality of West Ham's first and third goals were the difference really, both free-kicks were right out of the top drawer and very little that we could do about either goal, apart from not giving the free-kicks away in the first place," he said. "And that swung the game their way.
"We had some really good chances first half, we probably should have been more than one ahead. We scored a good goal ourselves and like I said, created some good openings.
"I do not think we were our usual selves with the ball tonight, which was probably the big disappointment for me, as we are usually very positive and accurate with our passing. But I thought we were slightly negative in the first half, which I think contributed to our downfall.
"It was a blustery day, but I do not think you can use the conditions. The pitch was good and zippy, everything was in our favour to have a good slick game in terms of our passing, but we were just not quite right.
"They have got quality players and we said before the game that they have players who can turn a game at any moment, and that proved with the free-kicks, but still looking at ourselves we can do better than that.
"I thought Benik did well and worked extremely hard, he had a couple of really good openings and it is great to see strikers be on the end of chances."
Howe was also delighted with the second-half performance of fellow new boys Juan Iturbe and Lewis Grabban, who made their Bournemouth debuts as second-half substitutes.
"And Grabban did fine - it was difficult as at that moment in the game we had lost control, so it was difficult for them to get into it really," Howe added.
"The pleasing thing was that he [Benik] was on the end of those chances and we know that with his quality he will put them away."
